1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for displaying menu items in an electronic device, and more particularly to an apparatus and method for displaying hierarchical menu items on a display screen in such a manner that a function desired by a user can be traced and performed with a minimum number of key inputs.
2. Description of the Related Art
Although various electronic devices are capable of displaying menu items, a mobile communication terminal will herein be described for illustrative purposes to be a menu display electronic device.
With advances of mobile communication terminals and the associated techniques for its use, a variety of functions have been integrated in the mobile communication terminals in addition to the terminals' own unique communication function, thereby causing function menus to be more diversified and complicated.
FIGS. 1A-C show exemplary display states of menus on the screen of a general mobile communication terminal. FIG. 1A shows an example of a display state of six menu items belonging to one parent menu, on the full screen. In this example, a cursor slot Cu is located at the menu item ‘INTERNET’.
FIG. 1B shows three menu items belonging to one parent menu, displayed on the lower half of the screen. Characters indicating that the cursor slot is located on the ‘PHONE BOOK’ menu item are displayed on the upper half of the screen.
FIG. 1C shows the lower-level menu of the menu item ‘PHONE BOOK’ this menu is displayed on the screen when a user selects the menu item ‘PHONE BOOK’ from among the menu items shown in FIG. 1B.
FIG. 2 shows an example of a general hierarchical menu structure. In the hierarchical structure, any one menu has several levels of sub-menus. It is assumed in the present example that the depth of the hierarchical structure is 4. However, it should be noted here that the depth of the hierarchical structure is variable and may be different for any given menu.
The reference numerals 110-140 denote first to fourth levels of menus, respectively, wherein the second-level menu is a sub-menu of the first-level menu, the third-level menu is a sub-menu of the second-level menu, and the fourth-level menu is a sub-menu of the third-level menu.
The relationship between menus and sub-menus can be defined as the relationship between parents and children. That is, the parent menu of a menu item ‘1.1.1’ is a menu item ‘1.1’. In the specification, the parent menu means a one-level higher menu item of a specific menu item in the hierarchical structure. The child menus of a menu item ‘1’ include the menu item ‘1.1’ and menu items ‘1.2’, ‘1.3’ and ‘1.4’. In the specification, the child menu means a set of one-level lower menu items of a specific menu item in the hierarchical structure. The brother menus of the menu item ‘1’ includes menu items ‘2’, ‘3’ and ‘4’. In the specification, the brother menu means a set of menu items having the same parent menu as that of a specific menu item in the hierarchical structure.
The first-level menu 110 is the top-level menu in the hierarchical structure, which is displayed on the screen of the mobile communication terminal when the user pushes a certain button, for example, a left, right, up or down direction key, for menu display on the screen or applies some different corresponding input, for example, through an on-screen picture touch pad. Here, menu items are denoted by numerals 1 to 4 for convenience sake.
The second-level menu 120 is a child menu of the first-level menu 110, which is displayed when the first-level menu 110 is selected. The third-level menu 130 is a child menu of the second-level menu 120, which is displayed when the second-level menu 120 is selected. The fourth-level menu 140 is a bottom-level menu in the hierarchical structure, in which a function desired by the user is executed directly.
However, in a conventional menu system, only menu items belonging to the same menu level are displayed together in one screen picture. For this reason, in order to execute a function corresponding to the bottom-level menu, the user has to repeat his/her direction key (navigation key)/confirm key input operation to trace a corresponding menu item. For example, in order to go from a menu item ‘1.1.1.1’ to menu item ‘4.4.4.4’ in the bottom-level menu in FIG. 2, the user must pass through the menu items ‘1’ and ‘4’ in the top-level menu. In this regard, the conventional menu system has a disadvantage in that too many key operations are required of the user, resulting in degradation in efficiency and inconvenience of use. This system is also disadvantageous in that the user cannot see the upper or lower-level menus of a currently displayed menu.
Moreover, a hot key based user configuration menu is subject to a complex hot key setup process and is low in utilization because most users have a tendency to trace menus using the direction keys in preference to hot keys.